Survey: Many African-Canadians, natives perceive racial profiling

By IAN FAIRCLOUGH STAFF REPORTERPublished February 22, 2013 - 10:14pm

A survey by the province’s human rights commission has found that a large number of African-Canadians and aboriginals have encountered what appears to be racial profiling while trying to buy goods and obtain services.

Some of the survey results were reported Friday at a commission board of inquiry into a Halifax man’s allegations that he was denied service at a downtown bar because he is black.

The survey was not done because of the complaint or to be part of the evidence but was included for context. It was taken before the board of inquiry was convened.

The survey polled 1,190 people. Of those, 59 per cent were white, 16.1 per cent were Asian, 12.6 per cent were African-Canadian, 7.2 per cent were Middle Eastern and 3.4 per cent were aboriginal.

The poll showed that 17.1 per cent of aboriginal respondents said they had been refused service while shopping for goods or services, while 73.2 per cent said store staff or security had followed them while shopping and 29.3 per cent said they or their belongings had been searched.

Of the African-Canadians surveyed, 9.3 per cent said they had been refused service, 62.7 per cent had been followed while shopping and 24.7 per cent had been searched.

Of those who were white,

1.8 per cent said they had been refused service, 23.6 per cent had been followed and 6.2 per cent had been searched.

There were more results to the study, but those were not reported at the board of inquiry. Gerald Hashey of the human rights commission said the entire report will be released in May at the Canadian Association of Statutory Human Rights Agencies conference in Halifax.

“Our survey was really interested in exploring what we consider indicators of consumer racial profiling,” Hashey said. “Our survey was about getting to the root of those experiences and having people share with us what those experiences were and how often they were happening.”

He said the survey suggests there is a difference in consumer experience based on race or ethnic origin.

The survey was done in the spring of 2012 on Spring Garden Road and Gottingen Street in Halifax and in Dartmouth and Digby.

Hashey said the commission gets four to eight complaints a year on consumer racial profiling.

“We were really interested in getting a better understanding of what the experience is,” he said.

“Certainly the complaints that we get tell a story, but we wanted more detail. We wanted to have a really firm foundation to understand what’s going on in the consumer marketplace when it comes to discrimination and the experience of non-white shoppers compared to white shoppers.”